


The Heads Of Scylla

by SwingGirlAtHeart



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 1700s, 18th Century, Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Dean Winchester Sings, Human Castiel (Supernatural), Hunting, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mermaids, Pirates, Romance, Sailing, Sea Monsters, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29174577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwingGirlAtHeart/pseuds/SwingGirlAtHeart
Summary: Castiel is the sole survivor of a shipwreck, and is fished out of the Caribbean by a crew who have made it their life's work to hunt terrifying creatures of the deep.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25





	1. Aspidochelone

**Author's Note:**

> Tags and rating will be updated as the story progresses. Additionally, I'll be including nautical terminology used at the end of each chapter.

_May, 1722_

There is an island where there shouldn’t be.

The _Infinite Rose_ is coursing steadily west-southwest, sails full, and the island comes arching out of the horizon right in their path where the captain’s chart says there should be only open water. A shout of “ _Land ho!_ ” comes down from the crow’s nest, and the heads of everyone on deck lift in surprise. They’re not due to make port in Havana for another four days.

Akobel, captain of the _Rose_ , scowls at the island through his spyglass and gives the order to drop anchor. “We must be off-course by a good distance,” he says. “We’ll stop and stock up on water and food while we sort this out.”

Castiel, a weather-hardened boy of twenty-three, climbs the rigging to watch the island draw closer. He’s been at home aboard the _Infinite Rose_ since the age of thirteen, and he’s never tired of the view.

The island-that-shouldn’t-be is rocky and ragged, drooping palms and scales of ancient lava flow paving the slopes into the sea. The waters are deep, ledges sharply dropping below the surface, and despite her keel the _Rose_ is able to anchor close to the island’s edge. Castiel shimmies back down to the deck.

The drop of the ladder is quickly followed by the lowering of the dinghy, and then Castiel is rowing to shore with the five-man scouting party. He and Ishim jump into knee-deep water to haul the dinghy onto land, the wood slats scraping against the rock. Suddenly, they’re in the shadow of a densely forested hill.

As Castiel squints up to the woody ridge glowing in the noon sun, Ishim lashes the rope from the dinghy to a palm trunk close to the water’s edge. The other three men clamber out of the dinghy, arms laden with empty sacks and crates for food. They have plenty of stores on board the ship, but if they’re as far off course as Akobel believes they must be, it’s only common sense to collect extra while they have the opportunity. At least in this particular area, it’s obvious the island is uninhabited, and so they’ll have to forage.

“Come on,” Ishim says to Castiel, taking a few empty water skins from the boat. “Let’s try to find a spring or something.”

Castiel trails along the shoreline with Ishim and Inias, water skins slung over his shoulder and sweat already beading on the nape of his neck. The beach is odd – no sand or gravel, only rippling volcanic stone. The ocean glitters where it laps along the edge, impossibly clear.

“Do you smell that?” asks Inias, frowning up at the tree line.

Castiel breathes deeply, wrinkling his nose when he realizes that Inias is right. A strange odor hangs heavy over the island, not just salt and earth but something else too. Something sour, like mud flats at low tide or decaying piles of fish guts at a monger’s.

“Maybe something died nearby,” Castiel suggests, though he doubts there are any animals on the island.

They’re close enough to the Bahamas that an undiscovered land mass is far less likely than winds simply blowing them off their normal route, but the idea that they’ve gone off course for the first time in a decade makes uneasiness settle into Castiel’s spine. He has made the journey across from England with the _Rose_ time and time again, and Akobel has never steered them wrong before.

Behind them, the _Rose_ sits proudly in the water, a square-rigged, fat-bottomed vessel that Castiel has loved as much as any home he’s ever had. Even from this distance, he can see Akobel’s silhouette behind the helm, hunched over his charts with the first mate at his side. A dozen men have climbed the masts and are busy stowing away the canvases, looking from far away like a troop of monkeys in the branches of a tree. The _Rose_ ’s hull is bright and polished, well cared for, her bowsprit pointing joyfully out to the open ocean as if she’s exclaiming _That’s where I want to go!_

“Castiel,” Inias says, wandering closer to the tree line. “Ishim, look at this.”

Ishim huffs in annoyance, much more focused on the task of finding water than anything Inias might have been distracted by. But he stops along with Castiel, the both of them following Inias away from the ocean to see what he’s found.

Inias kneels by the base of a sagging palm, hand splayed on the trunk. Where the palm sinks into the earth, it still looks like solid rock, which is strange on its own – Castiel has never seen a palm tree growing from rock, volcanic or otherwise. A glance up and down the edge of the woods shows all the plants similarly taking root, sprouting up through the ancient lava flow itself. But that’s not what Inias is pointing to.

At the base of the palm, a cluster of mussels clings to the wood. They grow in a knotted mass spread over a large patch of the tree trunk, and despite being easily forty feet from the water they are healthy and alive. Barnacles dot the trunk as well, little eyes closed against the daylight.

“We must be below the tide line,” Ishim says with a dismissive shrug.

Castiel somehow doesn’t think that’s the answer – the tide already seems pretty high – but he also can’t think of another explanation. Looking past the clump of mussels, his eyes widen at the vegetation growing close to the ground. Shaded under the wooded canopy, he hadn’t noticed it before.

There are shrubs and colorful flowers, dense thicket and vines. And poking through the greenery is coral.

The coral is _everywhere_ , sprouting up in every color, in every shape. Mixed in with the coconut palms and copperwoods and white cinnamon, the forest is an entire reef unto itself. And stranger _still_ , none of the coral appears to be dead despite being far from its native habitat. In a few spots, the corals have climbed trees, sprouting from the tree trunks like real branches. Castiel half expects to see a bird’s nest in one of them.

“What in Heaven’s name…” says Ishim, their empty water skins all but forgotten in the sight of this phenomenon.

Somehow, Castiel feels it before it happens. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end, terror tugging suddenly at his chest.

He reaches for Inias’ shoulder. “I think we should—” he starts, about to suggest they go back to the _Rose_.

The island gives a great, terrible shudder, a sound coming up from the earth below like a thousand-year-old fury.

Inias goes pale as a sheet. Castiel grabs his arm.

“Back to the ship!” Ishim cries, eyes white around the edges.

The palms quake overhead as they run, feet slipping on the volcanic stone polished by years of erosion. Castiel drops the water skins and leaves them, Inias running ahead and Ishim bringing up the rear. The _Infinite Rose_ rocks back and forth atop the water, men scrambling to climb down from the masts, sea foam frothing at her hull.

The island groans and bucks, and Inias screams, losing his footing. He tumbles down the slope of rock and splashes into the water.

“Inias!” Castiel shouts, but with only a flash of a flailing hand, Inias is gone, sucked down into the depths by some unseen current.

Ishim seizes Castiel’s shoulders and shoves him hard. “Go! Go!”

The rest of the scouting party is already piling into the dinghy. They haven’t bothered taking the time to untie the rope; someone cut it, leaving the tail hanging from the tree. The entire island is shaking, and it’s deafening.

Castiel and Ishim throw their shoulders against the dinghy, pushing it toward the water, but it’s not necessary. The land flexes and drops abruptly, water rushing up the rocks. The wave seizes the dinghy and lifts it easily, and Castiel and Ishim are barely able to climb in before they’re dragged to the same fate as Inias. The ocean surges up, flooding past the beach, vegetation and trees disappearing into the water.

“Row!” screams Ishim, and they're rowing faster than they’ve ever done.

And that’s when it happens.

A small peninsula stretching out from the main island drops into the ocean as suddenly as a building collapsing, leaving only frothing white in its wake, and the anchor chain from the _Rose_ ’s bow goes taut. It strains for only a second, and then rips downward, slashing a gaping hole through her hull.

“ _NO!_ ” he cries, his fingers white where they grip the edge of the dinghy.

The wound in the _Infinite Rose_ runs down past the water line, and her bow is already dipping as the water rushes in to claim her. Men aboard are all shouting, screaming – Castiel’s brothers, men who have been on the _Rose_ for as long as he has or longer – and their cries are the loudest thing Castiel has ever heard.

The ship noses down, down, down until the anchor chain wrests the winch free, and it tears through the splintered gap in the hull with a crash. The _Rose_ bobs violently back up, free of the anchor, but quickly begins to sink again. She lists to starboard, her masts swing down.

The water heaves, and the dinghy spins like a leaf in a river, its occupants hanging on for dear life. They're no longer rowing – they can’t, there’s no point.

Somewhere in the spinning, Castiel sees the _Infinite Rose_ break into pieces.

Above them, the island ridge is sinking too, arching like the great fin of a shark. The churning waves wash over the edge of the dinghy, pulling at the oars until they’re torn from the locks. There’s debris in the water – shredded wood and ropes and torn canvas – and bodies flail in the riptide, passing too quickly for Castiel to tell who they are.

A glimpse of a maroon coat, and he thinks he sees Akobel dragged into the deep.

The ocean surges over the land on the western side of the isle, climbing rapidly up to the peak of the rocky ridge. The forest vanishes into the waves.

The island is not sinking, Castiel realizes as they whirl helplessly in the dinghy. It is diving.

This realization has only a half second to marinate before a splitting _crack_ pierces his ears, and the dinghy, unable to hold itself together against the power of the ocean, breaks apart. Castiel catches Ishim’s eye and has no time to say any kind of farewell before the water rushes up to greet them.

He’s pulled under by a force so strong, the air is ripped from his lungs as he goes down, bubbles streaming from his mouth like his very soul is escaping him. The strongest man on earth couldn’t swim against this current.

He sees only flashes.

Ishim disappears.

The curve of a gigantic fin, sweeping through the water below.

A great eye, yellow and dilating and larger than any ship.

The blue fades into black.

* * *

Castiel returns to consciousness on the flat of his back, and immediately vomits up salt water. Someone seizes his shoulders and roughly turns him onto his side, brine streaming from his mouth and nose, burning the insides of his sinuses, his throat, his lungs. A hand thumps him between the shoulder blades.

“Easy there, sailor,” says a voice above him.

Castiel is coughing, eyes searing with salt, gulping in desperate bursts of air. He can feel solid wood underneath him. He spits up another mouthful of seawater and sits back, unable to think of anything other than drawing breath.

When he finally opens his eyes everything is blurry, his vision still swimming. He blinks rapidly against the blinding light.

Kneeling over him is a young man, sun-kissed and freckled and soaking wet. He’s haloed by the sun.

“Is this Heaven, then?” Castiel blurts, thinking of no other possibility.

The man laughs, water dripping from the tip of his nose. “No,” he says. “We found you floating, fished you out.”

Castiel squints in confusion, past the man’s shoulder, and sees at last that he’s on the deck of a ship. A handful of others hover nearby, one coiling a rope that’s still attached to the young man’s waist. Overhead, sails flap in the breeze.

“I don’t understand,” says Castiel. He was pulled down, lost to the ocean. He remembers that. The screams of his crewmates echo in his ears, Ishim’s vanishing face lurking behind his eyelids.

“Your ship went down,” the man explains, his hand on Castiel’s shoulder.

Castiel shoves the hand away. “I know that.”

“Okay, okay,” the stranger says, lifting his palms. “What’s your name?”

“Castiel,” he answers. His throat is still hoarse; his name comes out a rasp.

“I’m Dean,” the man replies as he sets to untying the rope from around his own waist. “Can you stand?”

“I – I think so.”

Dean holds out his hand and hoists Castiel to his feet, keeping his grip until Castiel ceases to sway.

Lightheaded, Castiel braces an arm against the bulward and takes in his surroundings. This ship is smaller than the _Infinite Rose_ , a schooner. A ship this size doesn’t need a crew of more than fifteen and can be managed by many fewer, and it seems most of the men aboard are here crowded around Dean and Castiel. Around them is nothing but open water. All signs of both the _Rose_ and the isle, gone.

“Where… where’s the island?” Castiel asks.

Dean glances at his crewmates for a moment before answering with a single chilling word. “Below.”

“What do you mean?”

Before Dean can open his mouth to answer, there’s a sound of heavy boots approaching from behind him. A tall man, dark-haired and hard-faced and wearing a long black coat, descends from the quarterdeck. From the way the entire crew stiffens and straightens when he approaches, parting like the Red Sea, Castiel deduces he must be their captain. Dean squares his shoulders in an almost defiant gesture, an odd reaction to a superior officer.

The captain regards Castiel with a piercing look, examining him up and down. “Did you test him?” he asks.

“He almost died,” Dean protests. “Surely that means—”

The captain cuts him off with a glare. “You know the rules. Every man on the ship is to be tested. No exceptions.”

Dean clamps his mouth shut, his jaw twitching. “Aye, captain.”

“Mr. Singer!” says the captain, turning to an older bearded man standing to his right. “I’m sure you’ll do the honors, since Dean is not so inclined.”

Mr. Singer glances for just a moment between Dean and the captain, and steps forward, drawing a knife from his belt.

Castiel flinches back. He doesn’t know what test they’re about to put him to, but he didn’t just survive drowning only to be stabbed twenty minutes later. He suddenly wonders if he’d be better off jumping overboard and taking his chances with the sharks.

“Relax, boy,” Mr. Singer says. “We ain’t gonna kill ya.”

“Then what— _Ow!_ ”

Castiel has no chance to argue or defend himself before Mr. Singer grabs his wrist and slices a shallow cut across the back of his forearm. He yanks his hand to his chest, wincing. He’s bleeding, not heavily, but it still stings. The next instant, Mr. Singer takes a water flask and splashes Castiel in the face with its contents.

Castiel sputters, dripping anew. “Damn you, I’ve already drowned today!”

Mr. Singer chuckles at that, but is apparently satisfied and retreats. “He’s good,” he tells the captain.

The captain nods curtly and hooks his thumbs into his belt. “Where was your ship headed?”

Castiel wipes water from his brow, now more annoyed than confused (although he’s that too). Explanations, it seems, are a rare commodity on this vessel. “Havana,” he spits.

“Well, that’s a bit out of our way,” the captain says, as if Castiel had insolently asked for help getting there. “We can drop you off in Tortuga. That’s our next stop.”

Castiel opens his mouth to insist on being dropped in Havana, and then swiftly closes it again as the captain’s words fully register. Tortuga.

“You’re pirates,” he says, his grip on the bulward tightening.

The crew laughs – including Dean.

“Only on days we’re not rescuing near-dead sailors,” replies the captain smoothly. He cracks the first smile since his arrival. It’s wide and mirthless and full of teeth.

“Right,” stammers Castiel. “Thank you. For saving me.”

“I trust you know your way around a ship like this?”

Castiel glances around the vessel again, taking closer stock of the details of her – the sails, rigging, masts, cannons, anything else he can see. She’s not so different from the _Rose_ that Castiel would be useless, so he nods. “Yes, I can work.”

“Then you’ll earn your passage to Tortuga,” the captain says. “Welcome aboard the _Impala_.”

And with that, the captain sweeps away without so much as an introduction.

Mr. Singer crosses his arms, having tucked his knife back into his belt. “Well, you’re a scrawny thing, but we can always use another hand.” He turns to Dean. “Get him some food, show him his quarters.”

Dean nods, seeming to take orders from Mr. Singer much more easily than the captain.

Mr. Singer turns and quirks an eyebrow at the rest of the crew. “What’re you idjits standing around gawking for? Get back to work!”

There’s a sudden flurry of activity as the men scramble to return to whatever task they’d been tending to prior to Castiel’s rescue, Mr. Singer overseeing with a discerning eye and a slight limp.

“All right, come on,” Dean says, jerking his head in the direction of the cargo hold.

Castiel follows, clutching his arm where it still hurts, and descends the steps below deck after Dean. It’s dim here, lit only by the sunlight streaming down the stairs and a few swaying lanterns. He stands and lets his eyes adjust while Dean digs through a few crates to his right, toward the stern. When he turns back around, he hands Castiel a few pieces of dried salted beef and a slightly bruised orange.

“Thank you,” Castiel says, although it’s more automatic courtesy than genuine gratitude. He’s not hungry. Maybe he’s still nauseated from spitting up seawater; maybe he’s simply in shock.

“Crew’s quarters are down there.” Dean gestures toward the bow, where a dozen or so empty hammocks swing gently with the rocking of the ship. “There’s more on the next level down. You can— You all right?”

Castiel blinks. Dean has halted midsentence and is now staring at him, his brow knitted in concern. Clearing his throat, Castiel realizes he’s been glaring at the wood slats under his feet, barely listening. Rather than reply to Dean’s question, he asks one of his own, tight and accusing. “Are you going to explain what that was about?”

Dean’s expression flattens, his mouth tightening. Here in the dimness of the hold, the shadows on his face make him look older, harsher. “You don’t want to know.”

“ _Are you—_ ” Fury surges up in Castiel’s throat, choking him. He grits his teeth. “My ship is gone. Everyone I— They’re _gone_. And what I saw…” He trails off, a shudder coursing through him. “I want to know. I need to know. And if you won’t tell me, then you may as well have left me to drown.”

Dean swallows, turning his back to Castiel for a moment as he retrieves another orange from the crate behind him. “The captain doesn’t want us talking about this stuff,” he says.

“I don’t care.”

Dean leans back against a post, his mouth tightening. He digs his thumbnail into the orange and begins tearing the rind away. “What did you see?”

Castiel is lightheaded suddenly, and he sits on the lowest step descending from the deck. “I… I saw an eye,” he says, breathless. “A huge eye. It was the biggest thing I’ve ever seen. Some kind of – of creature, some monster— Oh _God_ , it was the kraken. Wasn’t it? It took down the island, and my ship with it.”

“It wasn’t an island,” Dean says solemnly, popping an orange segment into his mouth. “The creature, the island…” He shrugs. “Same thing.”

Castiel stares.

“And it wasn’t a kraken,” Dean continues. “That was an aspidochelone.”

There must still be water in Castiel’s ears. “An aspido— what?”

“It’s a monster,” Dean agrees. “And as far as I know, the largest creature on Earth. We’ve been hunting it for months.”

“You—” Castiel pauses. “You’re having me on.”

Dean eats another piece of orange. “Do I look like I’m lying?”

Castiel eyes him suspiciously, and Dean evenly meets his gaze. Finally, huffing out a resigned breath, Castiel shakes his head and says, “No, you don’t.”

“I’m sorry about your ship,” Dean says. “Truly. But I can also tell you that I’ve seen this thing kill dozens of people – good people, unsuspecting people, who just dropped anchor and thought nothing of it – and I’ve never seen a single survivor. So you must be some kind of blessed.”

Castiel’s jaw clenches. He doesn’t feel blessed, or lucky, or fortunate. He can still see Inias’ hand vanishing with a final gasp, Ishim’s body dragged into the dark.

“You should eat,” Dean urges gently.

Clearing his throat, Castiel has completely forgotten that he’s holding food, and he takes a bite of the dried beef. Only then does he realize how hungry he actually is, and he devours the rest in short order.

“Come on,” Dean beckons him back to his feet and leads the way up the steps. Returning to the deck, Castiel has to squint as his eyes readjust to the sunlight. Dean goes to the ship’s edge and drops the rind of his orange overboard, then leans on his elbows. “It’ll take us a few days to reach Tortuga. But once we’re there I can help you find another ship to run with.”

Castiel snorts, ripping a bit of peel and tossing it into the ocean. The sun is on their faces as they lean on the starboard bulward, the _Impala_ having turned south. She’s already making good time, leaving a fading trail of white wake behind her.

“I doubt any ship in Tortuga will have honest work,” Castiel says. In his years aboard the _Infinite Rose_ they had had their fair share of pirate encounters, and had survived most of them thanks to being well-armed, but he still has a few nasty memories of the ship being overrun and their cargo hold emptied.

Dean quirks an eyebrow at him, green eyes flashing in the sun. “Beggars can’t be choosers. At the very least, you’ll find something to get you to Havana. Or wherever you want to go.”

Castiel chews thoughtfully on an orange wedge. He doesn’t actually know where he’ll go. He has no home in the Caribbean, and no home in England. The only home he’s known since childhood is in pieces at the bottom of the sea, along with the only people he might have described as family.

Rather than face that dilemma immediately, Castiel changes the subject. “You said you’d been hunting the aspi— aspido—”

“Aspidochelone,” Dean supplies.

“The monster. You said you’ve been hunting it for months. What did you mean?”

“That’s what we do.” Dean smiles, his chest puffing out slightly in pride. “We’re hunters.”

Castiel frowns at the water as he takes this in. “What else do you hunt? Surely there’s not enough of those aspid— _things_ to keep you in business.”

“No,” Dean says with a chuckle. “Anything you’d describe as a monster, anything that preys on people, that’s what we hunt.”

Castiel holds out his forearm, where the cut has stopped bleeding. “So, when Mr. Singer… tested me. He was—”

“Making sure you were human,” Dean finishes for him. “Some creatures have been known to disguise themselves as one of us. Holy water, silver knife, copper coin. Quick way to tell if the person you’re talking to is actually a person.”

“Copper coin?”

“Bobby had it in his other hand when he cut you,” Dean says, and it strikes Castiel as odd that he refers to Mr. Singer by his Christian name. “If you were a siren, nereid, or one of a handful of other things, your skin would’ve burned. You’d have noticed.”

For the first time, Castiel sees that Dean has rings in his ears – small and nondescript, glinting in the sun, but mismatched. On the left ear is copper, on the right is silver.

“So. Not pirates.”

Dean tugs on the earring in his left ear, laughing again. “Well, hunting doesn’t always bring with it silver and gold. Gotta pay for supplies somehow.”

“All right, then. Occasional pirates.” Castiel supposes that’s better than pirating _all_ the time. Dean is right, though. Beggars cannot be choosers. And the more Castiel learns about sea monsters, the better dry land sounds.

* * *

Castiel can’t help resenting the _Impala_ a bit, simply because she isn’t the _Infinite Rose_ , but he also can’t deny that she is a _beautiful_ ship. She’s quicker and more agile than the _Rose_ , sleek, the fastest ship he’s ever been on. The wood of her hull is a dark-colored elm, stained black by years of soaking, and she cuts through waves like a hot knife through butter.

He’s always been a sky rat, comfortably at home up in the rigging and sails, and it takes him barely any time at all to learn his way around the _Impala_ ’s masts. She only has two, anyways. The _Rose_ had three masts, and Castiel had known every inch. The _Impala_ simply has less area to cover, and the knots and sails are the same.

Except, however, for the threads of thin copper wire woven through the canvases of each sail. He asks Dean what it’s for at the end of the first day, but all Dean says is “Protection.”

Castiel knows how a well-run ship should feel beneath him when he’s up in the air, with only the ropes and yardarms separating him from a long drop into the water. In the hands of an inexperienced helmsman, even the most well-built vessel will buck and slap ungracefully against the waves, coming dangerously close to throwing anybody in the masts overboard. But with Mr. Singer at the wheel, the _Impala_ practically dances. Castiel is able to feel the moves she’ll make before she makes them, allowing him to balance almost entirely hands-free.

On the deck below, he can see Dean. Dean does not seem to have any particular specialty and instead alternates between jobs, sometimes vanishing into the hold for long stretches of time, sometimes climbing up the masts to work alongside him. Dean is the same as Castiel – obviously a man raised on the water and in tune with the ship under his feet. Castiel has a feeling that if the _Impala_ were to sink, Dean would feel the loss as profoundly as Castiel feels the loss of the _Rose_.

In the evening, as the wind begins to die down and their speed slows, Castiel and Dean are still aloft, feet stirruped in the ropes along the yard. The sky has gone from blue to a gleaming gold, the water darkening to violet flecked with orange on every ripple. The _Impala_ is horsing, riding the current steadily southward under Mr. Singer’s firm guiding hand despite the lack of a reliable breeze.

“What is an impala, anyways?” Castiel asks as he hauls up the clewline, cinching the gasket to stow one corner of the sail hanging from this particular arm.

“It’s an antelope, I think,” Dean replies, keeping his eyes on the task at hand as he does the same with the buntline to Castiel’s right. “Like a deer. Captain spent some of his time with His Majesty’s army in Africa, said they were all over the place, and faster than you could believe. Nigh impossible to catch.”

“Seems appropriate,” Castiel remarks. “The captain used to be in the British Army, then? Why did he leave?”

Dean glances at him from the corner of his eye, then moves down the yard to the next buntline. “You’d have to ask him. Not really my place to talk about it.”

“I guess I’m just curious as to how a soldier becomes a pirate. Or a hunter. Whatever he calls himself.” Castiel ties up another buntline, securing the canvas in expert folds beneath the gasket. “How about you?”

“Me?”

“Yes, how did you come into this line of work?”

Dean clears his throat, looking very intently at the knot he’s tying. “I was born to it.”

Somehow, the answer is more startling than anything else Castiel was expecting Dean to say, and he wants to press for more information. But the way Dean has stiffened, the square set of his shoulders and sharp corner of his jaw, stops Castiel’s questions in his throat. He leaves the conversation to dangle in the air.

Later, in the pitch black of midnight, Castiel wakes in his hammock below deck. It’s quiet, the only noises snores from a few of the other hammocks and waves lapping against the hull. A single lantern is still lit at the bulkhead, creaking slightly as it swings with the ship and casting long shadows along the floor.

Castiel shifts restlessly, staring up at the back of the man who’s sleeping above him – Garth, as he’d introduced himself earlier. Garth seems to be all limbs and very little muscle, and his arms hang down on either side like they’re made of nothing but rope. His long legs hang, too, nearly giving Castiel the impression that he’s in a four-poster bed rather than a hammock with another man taking up more than his fair share of space.

He’s slightly annoyed, but more than used to sharing sleeping quarters with a dozen other men, so he rolls over and tries to go back to sleep.

Two posts away, Dean’s hammock is empty.

Castiel frowns, lifting his head and glancing around the cabin. The other men are all sleeping soundly, and he knows Dean isn’t on night duty since he’d seen him working all day. Dean’s boots are missing from the floor by his hammock.

Doing his best to not wake Garth, Castiel carefully climbs out of his hammock and pulls on his own boots. In all likelihood, Dean’s simply gone up to the deck to take a piss, but something about knowing monsters are lurking unseen in the waters below has Castiel more anxious than he used to be. He tiptoes out of the crew quarters and creeps up the steps onto the deck.

The night sky overhead is breathtaking, the moon shimmering against the surface of the water off the port bow. The _Impala_ is still coursing slow but steady with the tide, an older dark-skinned man – Rufus, if Castiel remembers correctly – at the helm while Bobby’s asleep below. Dean is nowhere to be seen.

Rufus seems to be focused on the stars more than anything happening on deck, and Castiel can hear voices coming from the captain’s quarters below where Rufus is standing. He darts silently across before Rufus can spot him, ducking behind the steps leading up to the quarterdeck.

The entrance to the captain’s quarters is just to Castiel’s left, and he leans close to hear what’s being said more clearly.

“—just thought he deserved to know,” Dean is saying. “He did lose his entire crew.”

“Thinking is not your strong suit, boy,” snarls the captain’s voice. It’s vicious enough to make even Castiel flinch where he stands in the dark. “There is a reason we do not go blabbing about these things to every man in every port!”

“Cas can handle it!” Dean argues, and Castiel’s stomach clenches. “He _did_ handle it!”

“That is not your call to make!”

“He _saw_ the aspidochelone. He had questions!” Dean is seething, his fury pouring through the cracks in the door.

“Then you should have let him ask!” the captain bellows. “Let him ask until he’s blue in the face for all I care!”

“I trust him,” Dean counters.

“Based on what, exactly? You’ve known him a day and a half. You do not know the first thing about who he is, nor do I.”

Dean’s response is quick and biting. “I know he’s survived something that we’ve never seen a human being live through before. And I won’t be the one making his situation worse.”

Castiel has never heard any member of any crew argue like this with their captain before. He’s shocked to his core that it’s on his behalf. So shocked, in fact, that he doesn’t hear Dean coming until it’s too late.

The door bursts open and Dean storms out, making Castiel leap backwards like he’s been branded by hot iron. Dean spots him immediately, the light from inside the cabin highlighting the hard lines of his face for just a moment before the door swings closed and they plunge back into darkness.

Castiel shifts awkwardly, opening his mouth to apologize for eavesdropping.

But Dean only turns and strides away.

Castiel casts one look over his shoulder, at the door to the captain’s cabin, and hears something heavy slam inside. He watches Dean stalk all the way to the prow, climbing up to the foredeck and disappearing behind the railing.

Castiel stands there for a minute, unsure if he should just go back to the crew’s quarters and pretend like nothing happened. In the end, he follows Dean.

Climbing up to the foredeck, he finds Dean sitting on the bowsprit, one leg hanging into the open air and the other propped up on the timber. He’s leaning with his spine against the samson post, head tilted back, watching the stars.

“Are you all right?” Castiel dares to ask.

Dean doesn’t answer immediately. He meets Castiel’s eye over his shoulder briefly, then returns his gaze to the sky. “Fine,” he says.

Castiel ventures a few steps closer.

“Sorry,” Dean says, and Castiel frowns, because if there’s anybody who should apologize, it’s not Dean. “My father can be… an acquired taste.”

Castiel stops short at that, looking Dean up and down in surprise. He sees absolutely no resemblance. “The captain is your father?”

“Yeah.”

“You must take after your mother,” Castiel bluntly states, then chides himself for not holding his tongue. He has a feeling that Dean is the sole reason he’s still alive, that the captain wouldn’t have stopped to fish him out of the water. And here he is, being rude.

Dean pauses, then laughs tightly, like he’s trying to brush away something that’s clinging to his shoulder. He deftly changes the subject. “Nice night, isn’t it?”

Castiel follows Dean’s gaze upward, to the glittering black. Cassiopeia and Perseus arch across the sky, and to the east a meteor falls, fizzing out just as quickly as it appeared. “Yes, it is,” he agrees.

“We should be in Tortuga by the day after tomorrow,” Dean says. “Then you can be on your way.”

Something in Castiel’s gut tightens at the way Dean says it, hurt. It’s what he wants, to leave and find passage to Havana, to find some other honest work aboard another merchant ship, to return to his life. But everything feels different, as though some compass inside Castiel’s chest has been knocked out of place. He shakes his head, ridding himself of the notion that he’s heading in the wrong direction.

“So when you said you were born into this,” he says, because it’s the first thing that occurs to him to say. “You meant that literally.”

Dean doesn’t answer, leaning forward and peering past the bowsprit to the lapping water below.

Castiel clears his throat and regrets saying anything at all. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”

Dean twists abruptly, clamping a calloused hand over Castiel’s mouth, and Castiel sucks a startled breath through his nose. Dean’s eyes are barely six inches from his, wide and reflecting moonlight. He presses a finger to his lips.

Castiel’s heart is thudding away in his ribcage, confusion clawing at his brain, when Dean’s eyes flicker toward the water. He takes his hand away from Castiel’s mouth and points to where the bow is cutting through the waves.

His pulse pounding in his ears, Castiel leans over the railing.

His heart drops straight into his stomach.

In the blackness of the water, there is a creature he has never seen before. It’s dark, barely visible against the void, except for little bioluminescent flecks along a dorsal fin. It slithers through the water like a serpent. As it rounds the bow, silent as a ghost, it turns and looks up, and a pair of hollow eyes flash in the light of the moon. It has a human face.

Castiel gasps, jerking backwards and nearly knocking Dean over. “ _What is that?_ ” he hisses, terror coursing through his veins.

“Mermaid,” Dean says under his breath, gripping Castiel’s arm as he watches the water, eyes darting to and fro. “And where there’s one, there’s more. We’re in trouble.”

Each statement is like a slap to Castiel’s face, layering on shock after shock.

Dean turns to face him, his mouth grimly set and sweat already beading on his temple despite the night air. He draws a deep breath, then gives Castiel an order.

“Sound the alarm.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Nautical Terminology**
> 
> **Bow/Prow :** The front of a ship. Bow refers to the entire front, while prow specifically means the front portion above the waterline, however they are mostly interchangeable.
> 
>  **Bowsprit :** A long pole extending horizontally from the bow of a ship, used to anchor the foremost sails.
> 
>  **Buntline & Clewline:** Ropes used to hoist sails up for stowage. The buntlines are situated along the center of the sail, while the clewlines are only at the edges and used to hoist the corners.
> 
>  **Bulkhead :** A wall within the hull of a ship, typically load-bearing, that acts as a divider between sections.
> 
>  **Bulward : ** The upper edge of the hull that comes above the deck, forming essentially a rail around the deck and keeps water from washing onto the ship.
> 
>  **Gasket :** A short rope used to tie down a stowed sail to its yard, tied with a quick-release knot to let the sails fly immediately when necessary.
> 
>  **Horsing :** To move a ship forward using a favorable tide or current, thereby traveling without sufficient wind.
> 
>  **Port & Starboard:** Left and right, respectively, if one is looking toward the bow.
> 
>  **Samson post :** A strong post that anchors the bowsprit to the skeleton of the ship.
> 
>  **Schooner :** A ship with at least two masts, on which the foremast is shorter than the mainmast.
> 
>  **Stern :** The rear of the ship.
> 
>  **Yard/Yardarm :** A horizontal spar attached to the mast, from which a sail is hung. The yard refers to the entire length of it, while the yardarm is only the outermost portion on either end.


	2. Mermaid

As a boy, Castiel had dreamed of mermaids.

His mother had told him stories, fair maidens as unearthly as they were beautiful, and Castiel had longed to see one since before he could remember. In the orphanage years later, he’d stared out the windows watching the ships on the Thames, yearning to sail away with them until he’d finally run and found work on the _Infinite Rose_. And even then, throughout the decade he’d lived on the _Rose_ , Castiel had passed long hours watching the open water, daydreaming of mermaids leaping between the waves, as if he could just think hard enough and one would appear.

Here and now, aboard the _Impala_ , he’s finally gotten his wish.

Castiel yanks the rope on the alarm bell hanging at the railing of the foredeck, and he sees Rufus’ silhouette immediately straighten at the helm. The bell clangs again and again, resounding over the ship. Dean is already running at full sprint for the cargo hold, shouting as he thunders down the steps below.

“ _Mermaids off the bow! Mermaids off the bow! Everyone up! Look alive!_ ”

The door to the captain’s cabin flings open and he marches out, sword already unsheathed. Castiel doesn’t stop ringing the bell. There’s barely any wind, and he knows whatever danger is circling the ship, they will not be able to outrun it.

Armed men pour up from the hold, swords glinting against the moonlight. A dozen and a half men, Castiel included, and he has no idea if it will be enough. Dean said there were more mermaids. He did not say how _many_ more.

Dean returns from below, two blades in hand, and rushes back up to the foredeck. “I hope you know how to use a sword.”

Castiel lets go of the bell rope and takes one sword from Dean. “Hit them with the sharp end,” he says.

Dean laughs, but it’s empty, hollowed out by fear. The final peal of the bell is still echoing, hanging over the water like the scream of someone just murdered.

“Orders, Captain!” a crewmember cries.

“Wait,” the captain says firmly, raising his hand. “Hold steady…”

The air goes quiet and still. The men stand and listen, eyes searching for anything amiss, knuckles white around the hilts of their cutlasses. They hold formation in the middle of the deck, backs to each other, and stay a good distance from the edge.

Castiel can only hear the pounding of his heart.

Blade at the ready, Dean creeps to the bulward, peering tentatively into the water, then back to Castiel’s side.

“Anything?” Castiel whispers.

Dean shakes his head, his eyes darting in circles around the ship.

“Maybe they left.”

“Mermaids don’t leave,” Dean hisses.

After another few seconds of silence, with no sign they’re about to become prey to any kind of vicious monster, Castiel begins to wonder if they’d hallucinated the creature in the water. “Do you think it was just the one?” he asks.

Dean looks at him like it’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. “No such thing as _just one_ ,” he says, his voice remaining breathy and hushed.

It’s at that moment that Rufus hollers from the quarterdeck, hitting the planks as his feet are whipped out from under him. Dean swears, lurching toward the stern, but Bobby is already running up to help.

There’s a hiss from behind them, and Castiel whirls on his heel to see a creature crawling over the edge of the starboard bow. He flinches back with a gasp, knocking into Dean. There’s nowhere to run.

Shouts from the crew. More are slithering onto the deck below – five, eight, ten. The attack is coordinated, calculated, raptorial.

The mermaids are not from his mother’s stories. Black eyes catch the moonlight in flickers, skin dark and iridescent. Their faces are human, hairless, neither masculine nor feminine, and dorsal fins sprout from their spines. Their jaws unhinge, mouths bristling with fangs like anglerfish.

For the second time in as many days, Castiel is sure he’s about to die.

The mermaid in front of him slinks onto the foredeck, fins unfolding into limbs. It’s taller than he is.

Dean wrenches Castiel back and plants himself in the creature’s line of attack, brandishing his cutlass as it lunges. It releases a hissing shriek like stone scraping on metal, teeth glistening, and dodges Dean’s sword.

There is another behind Castiel, coming up over the bulward like some kind of leopard scaling a tree. He swings round, sword sweeping, and manages to clip the mermaid on the shoulder. The wound is small and far from lethal, but it sizzles audibly upon contact. The mermaid screeches, its maw opening as wide as it will go, gills flaring.

On the main deck is sheer chaos. Men shouting, screaming, fighting. Blood on the planks. A dozen mermaids, maybe more, impossible to tell in the pandemonium.

Castiel glances down for just long enough to see a mermaid bite a man’s head cleanly from his body, leaving his neck spraying.

Shoulder to shoulder, Dean and Castiel fight for their lives.

The mermaid charges forward, coming at Castiel with wild precision. He’s far from an experienced swordsman, and it’s pure reflex that makes him swing the cutlass up just as the mermaid’s teeth are half an arm’s length away. There’s an unearthly howl and the thing recoils, writhing on the deck before he realizes that he actually managed to hit it. A wound bubbles in its fleshy abdomen like he struck it with acid.

It’s back on its feet – suddenly it _has_ feet – before Castiel has time to blink, and he manages to twist away in the split second before the mermaid’s jaw closes on his head. Instead its teeth pierce his shoulder, tearing through the meat there as he jerks back. Pain explodes behind his eyelids. He can feel his skin in ribbons.

He staggers back as the mermaid lunges again, and he’s not fast enough. His feet are swept from under him, his back hits the planks, and suddenly he’s looking into the mermaid’s gaping mouth, across rows and rows of teeth mere inches from his face.

He gasps what he’s sure will be his final breath and squeezes his eyes shut – his sword arm is pinned – and then feels the creature lurch, a horrible _squelch_ reaching his ears. A second ticks past, then another, and Castiel is still alive.

He opens one eye and sees that the mermaid has ceased its attack, and a blade protrudes straight out through its chest. Dean is standing just behind it, grasping the sword’s hilt, panting and spattered with what must be mermaid blood. With a snarl, he wrenches the sword back and the mermaid falls limply to the deck, its skin still sizzling around its fatal wound.

Castiel is out of breath with exertion and terror, and he glances over his shoulder to see that Dean has beheaded the other mermaid on the prow. Its severed head sits where it rolled a couple yards away, its body lying akimbo and leaking dark blood onto the planks.

“You good?” Dean asks, eyeing Castiel’s bleeding shoulder.

Castiel winces, rolling his shoulder as he tests the limits of its movement. “I think so.”

“Then come on,” Dean says, hoisting him back up to his feet. “Fight’s not over.”

He’s right. On the main deck, the battle is far from finished. Castiel grips his cutlass tight and follows Dean into the fray.

Practically leaping into the fight, Dean slaughters a mermaid just before it can rip Garth’s throat out. Castiel manages to stab another through the neck as it looks up from eating one of the crewmembers, little tendrils of meat still hanging from its fangs as it dies with an alien shriek.

The captain is taking on two mermaids simultaneously, cutlass swinging in a flurry of expert movement. Ruthlessly efficient, he doesn’t stop for even a breath. He runs through one and beheads the other.

Miraculously, both Rufus and Bobby have made it down from the quarterdeck and are fighting back-to-back, the pair of them decorated in splashes of mermaid bodily fluids.

The deck is strewn with bodies. A few men. Mostly monsters.

With every mermaid corpse that hits the deck, it gets easier to kill the next. Slowly, the men begin to outnumber the monsters.

“Castiel!” comes a shout from the port gunwale.

Castiel’s gaze whips up from the still-twitching body of his second kill to see Garth cornered at the side, all his long lanky limbs folded in terror. The mermaid coming at him has knocked the cutlass from Garth’s hand and well out of reach – he’s weaponless, and Castiel is the nearest man.

Without stopping to think, Castiel throws his sword through the air, hilt first. It spins and lodges itself like a hatchet in the mermaid’s back, at the base of the dorsal fin. The mermaid flips and thrashes with a screaming howl. Garth seizes the hilt, yanks the cutlass out of the mermaid’s spine and drives it cleanly through the abdomen.

Garth sits back, breathless and wide-eyed, his face striped with dripping blood. “Thanks, pal,” he says, looking up at Castiel in what might be described as awe.

By the time Garth gives Castiel his blade back and reclaims his own, there’s only one more mermaid still alive on the deck. If any others managed to survive, they’ve already slithered back into the water in retreat.

Rufus dispatches the last mermaid with a scowl, then spits on its corpse.

In the wake of the skirmish, the lack of noise is oppressive. Without the clamor of shouts and animalistic shrieks, the sound of gnashing fangs and blades tearing through flesh, it’s almost silent by comparison. All over the ship, men stand and catch their breath, nurse their wounds, and wipe monster blood from their skin.

Castiel searches the deck for Dean. He’s by the stairs to the quarterdeck, helping Bobby to his feet, blatant worry etched across his face. “I’m fine, kid,” Bobby says, though he sways just a little.

The captain sheathes his sword, grimacing at the carnage on his ship. “How many did we lose?”

Rufus nudges his toe against the decapitated corpse of a human. The head is gone, eaten already and irretrievable. “I think this one’s Martin.”

“I’ve got Bucky over here,” says Garth, fighting tears as he rolls over the body of a redheaded man with half his innards spilled in ropes across the planks. Garth sniffs and wipes his eyes on his sleeve.

“Elvis here,” Dean announces grimly, gesturing to a third body. This one’s neck is ripped to the bone, his trachea gaping in the open air.

“I think that’s it,” Bobby says, surveying the damage. “We got lucky.”

Castiel blanches. “ _Lucky?_ ” he echoes as the captain tallies the number of dead mermaids sprawled across the ship.

Bobby quirks an eyebrow at him. “You’ve never seen what a pack of these things can do to a ship that ain’t prepared,” he says solemnly. “We lost three men out of nineteen. Yeah, I’d say that’s damn lucky.”

The full realization of the last – minute? hour? Castiel has no idea – hits him with a force like a tidal wave, and he goes weak at the knees. He grabs the railing of the steps up to the foredeck and braces himself against the sudden urge to vomit.

Already the crew has begun the cleanup, dragging mermaid corpses to the edges of the ship and tossing them unceremoniously overboard. Dean and Garth hoist one together over the bulward, letting it vanish into the dark with nothing more than a splash from below.

“You did good,” Dean says as he approaches Castiel, wiping his hands on his breeches. His sword hangs at his side. It’s still bloody and dripping.

Castiel nods briefly but doesn’t speak, still attempting to wrap his mind around the idea that he’s not only fought through a monster attack, but that he’s lived to tell the tale.

“Cas.” Dean puts a firm hand on Castiel’s uninjured shoulder and forces him to meet his eye. “You’re fine. You made it. Actually, you did amazing.”

Castiel swallows. His cutlass is trembling in his hand. “Did I?”

Dean smiles, bright even in the midnight gloom. “Yeah. I’d take you on my side in a fight any day. How many’d you get?”

Reassured, at least somewhat, Castiel finds the strength to straighten and remove his hand from the railing. His breathing slows, though his fist still shakes. His wounded shoulder is stinging. “Um. Two, I think.”

“Three,” Garth interjects from where he’s dragging a dead mermaid past them. “The sword-throwing was impressive.”

“You killed that one, not me,” Castiel disagrees.

Garth shrugs. “You helped.” He grunts and strains with the weight of the mermaid until Castiel finally finds his feet and steps over to help him. The body disappears into the black ocean.

“Alright. Two and a half,” Castiel amends, turning back to Dean. “You?”

“Four.”

“Why did the mermaid’s skin burn?” he asks, holding up his blade. He can still hear the sizzling of the mermaid’s flesh.

Dean pats his cutlass where it hangs from his belt. “Copper blades,” he answers. “The captain had them made special.”

Castiel raises his eyebrows, turning the blade in his hand so that it catches the moonlight. Now that he’s got the time to look at it more closely, he can see even in the dimness that the blade is not the same color as the familiar steel swords he’s seen all his life. He recalls what Dean said the day before, that Bobby had held a copper coin in his hand to see if Castiel was human.

“That’s clever,” he says.

“Mermaids won’t die if you hit them with steel,” Dean elaborates. “It’s got to be copper. Most ships don’t carry copper weapons.”

Castiel shudders at the thought of what an attack on an unprepared vessel would look like. He clears his throat and holds the cutlass out toward Dean. “I imagine you want this back.”

Dean glances down at the blade for an instant, then back up to Castiel. He frowns. “Far as I’m concerned, that’s yours, Cas.”

Castiel blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“Keep it,” Dean insists, then shrugs. “At least until Tortuga. You never know; we might run into more trouble.”

* * *

The wind returns with the sunrise, and just after dawn Castiel climbs aloft with Garth to unfurl the sails. The _Impala_ ’s speed picks up again. Castiel is grateful for the daylight, having spent the remainder of the night after the attack tossing and turning in his hammock, unable to sleep without nightmares of black eyes and huge fangs.

“I don’t understand how you do it,” he remarks to Garth as the sun ascends to the port yardarm.

Garth squints at him from a few feet away, canvas flapping loudly below them. His earrings – identical to Dean's – wink in the sunlight. “Do what?”

“Fight monsters,” Castiel clarifies as he moves on to the next gasket. “As a mission, I mean. Day in, day out.”

“Well,” Garth says, bracing his elbows on the yard and looking out to the southern horizon, “I don’t know. I think once I knew the monsters were real, I couldn’t just sit by. Besides, I like helping people.”

Castiel watches the sun glimmer, its light fractured across the ocean like a shattered church window. “Why not tell people?”

Garth shakes his head. “No, no, you’d have a mass panic on your hands,” he says. “And that’s only if they even believe you.”

Something in Garth’s tone makes Castiel think he might be speaking from personal experience.

There are islands approaching from the distance, and Garth shields his eyes against the sun and says they’ll stop soon for the funeral.

Castiel looks down to the ship far below them, where Bucky, Elvis, and Martin’s bodies remain wrapped in sheets on the deck close to the stern. “Why have the funeral on land?” he asks. It makes no sense – men are buried at sea all the time, so there’s no reason Castiel can think of to have kept the corpses for an actual, literal burial.

“We have to burn them,” Garth says and then, when Castiel blinks in confusion, elaborates. “If you don’t salt and burn a body, it runs the risk of turning into a vengeful spirit.”

Castiel makes a face. “So ghosts are real too?”

“Practically everything you ever heard of is real,” Garth says with a light chuckle. “Any case, I can’t think of a worse fate than turning into an angry ghost.”

Castiel is quiet for a while as he considers this, and he comes to the conclusion that Garth is probably right. Making sure a person doesn’t turn into a vengeful spirit is likely to be equal parts strategy and kindness – preventing someone from becoming just another thing they need to kill, as well as ensuring they don’t experience a painful afterlife. He thinks of the men he’s seen buried at sea over the years, killed by accident or disease, thrown into the ocean, and wonders if any of them still roam.

The _Impala_ drops an anchor for a few hours in the late morning on the shore of Mayaguana. They don’t have to worry about anybody else finding them by chance here – despite its proximity to the shipping routes and trading ports, the isle is uninhabited, myths of angry Lucayan spirits hanging over the land and keeping potential settlers at a distance.

Castiel rows to shore along with the majority of the crew, leaving only Rufus and Bobby on board the _Impala_. On the beach, they build a pyre using wood harvested from the tree line, then set the corpses of their dead brethren aflame.

It’s quiet as they burn. Smoke billows up, carrying away whatever’s left of the dead into the atmosphere. Nobody speaks.

To Castiel’s left, Dean is still as a statue, watching the flames. To his right, Garth is a blubbering mess.

Castiel supposes everyone mourns in their own way.

It takes less time than he expects for the pyre to burn down to nothing but charred timber, and then without fuss or fanfare the crew returns to the _Impala_. As they row back out to where she’s anchored, Castiel realizes that this is a well-rehearsed process. Build a pyre, salt and burn the bodies, watch until they’re gone. It’s not just tradition; it’s routine. He wonders how often they have to do this.

As the sun dips down and evening sweeps back in, the _Impala_ sails south through the Caicos passage, little islands poking up out of the waves on both the eastern and western horizons. The sunset this particular night is a brilliant pink rippled with orange, a mackerel sky, and the ocean turns to wine.

Castiel sits on the main deck with the crew, breezes whipping at their hair and clothes as the sun sinks into the sea. The evening meal tonight is no different than the previous nights – dried salt beef, rice, and beans. It’s hearty food, and Castiel is starving, so he doesn’t make chitchat with the others as he eats, content to just listen to their conversations. 

Mostly, the men are excited to make port in Tortuga tomorrow. Wally talks about a girl he’s been meaning to call on, while Ash brags that he’ll consume more rum than anyone else and still be standing and would anyone care to bet on it?

“What about you?” asks Garth after he tells Castiel about a tavern that supposedly has the best blackened fish this side of the Atlantic. “What will you do?”

Castiel sits back, placing his now-empty dish at his feet. “Find a ship to take me to Havana, I suppose,” he says. “Then find work.”

Garth looks up to the sky, where the stars are just beginning to emerge. “That’s too bad,” he muses. “You’re pretty handy in a fight. Plus, you’re good company.”

Castiel doesn’t quite know what to do with the compliment, so he says nothing, shifting awkwardly. Pain spikes from his bandaged shoulder at the movement and he prods at it gently with his other hand. He’s certain he’ll end up with an unusual scar.

Garth doesn’t speak further. Across the deck from him, Ash taps the base of his empty cup against the planks.

At first, Castiel doesn’t register the sound, but then Wally taps his own cup in unison. Then Asa joins, stomping his foot against the deck, and is followed by Rufus.

“What’s happening?” Castiel whispers to Garth, but Garth only grins at him and tells him to wait and see, stomping in time with the rest of them.

Before he knows it, the entire crew is drumming a rhythm into the deck of the ship, and someone – Castiel can’t tell who – begins to hum a low, rumbling tune. Dean sits a couple yards away atop a wooden crate, knocking his knuckles against the crate in perfect tempo.

Whoever’s humming carries on for a few measures, and then several deep voices all join smoothly.

“ _Haul, haul, haul away. Haul, haul, haul away,_ ” they sing, the words vibrating out across the deck and over the water into the dark. “ _Haul, haul, haul away, haul away the anchor._ ”

This is another tradition, Castiel realizes. Another routine, well-practiced and frequently performed.

When the crew reaches the end of the refrain, Dean takes the verse alone, his voice rising above the others. Castiel is stunned, and he watches Dean unabashed with wonder.

“ _Born in Ireland scandalously to a prosperous attorney; He had an affair with the maid Mary, and I was their bastard child_ ,” Dean sings, still drumming his fists against the crate beneath him. He’s smiling. “ _So he hid me in sight in his employ and dressed me as a plucky boy, but his wife saw through his shammy ploy, and Pa was the shame of the town. He wanted to_ —”

“ _Haul, haul, haul away. Haul, haul, haul away the anchor,_ ” the crew rumbles the chorus. Feet stomp, hands drum. Castiel can only listen and watch.

Dean takes the song for himself again, falling effortlessly into the next verse. “ _We upped and left on a stormy sea – a new world, new life for me – but me poor Ma died suddenly, a pain I couldn’t believe. I was mad, I was out of control, lashing out with violent blows_ – _I was bad, with a storm in my soul, volatile as the sea. I wanted to_ —”

This time, Castiel remembers himself enough to join in, singing along with the rest of the crew for the refrain. Somehow, as strange as this is, he thinks he understands it. The rhythm, the song… this keeps the darkness at bay, keeps the nightmares in the water where they belong. It celebrates the fact that they’re still alive.

“ _Haul, haul, haul away. Haul, haul, haul away the anchor…_ ”

“ _Pa got rich in the sugar boom, and harried me to marry soon, some boring monied well-to-do, but I’m not the genteel kind,_ ” Dean sings. His eyes close briefly, like he’s forgetting the rest of the men are even present. “ _And that’s when I met sailor Jim, no wealth, no rank or influence, so Pa cut me inheritance when I swore to be his wife._ ”

Dean’s voice rises then in the song’s bridge, and Castiel’s heart skips in his chest.

“ _Now, I never said that I loved him, but little were my options – I longed to sail the ocean, and Jim was living that life! I wanted to_ —”

“ _Haul, haul, haul away! Haul, haul, haul away the anchor!_ "

Castiel has had this feeling only once before in his life, watching a master bladesmith in Port Royal years ago hammering delicacy into an ornate sword. He’s shocked with the privilege of watching someone performing the task they were clearly meant for, designed for by God. Sitting here under the stars, watching Dean sing with the beat thrumming through the boards of the deck, Castiel is blessed.

He sleeps well that night.

In the morning, he’s woken by Dean lightly punching him in the shoulder. He jolts awake, hammock swinging. Dean is standing over him with a grin. He’s shrugged a plain black waistcoat over his shirt, leaving it hanging unbuttoned, and he’s holding Castiel’s boots in hand.

“Come on, man,” he says, lightly kicking Castiel’s side through the hammock. “Rise and shine.”

Castiel runs a palm over his face, still groggy. He feels like he’s been asleep for a hundred years, and could sleep for a hundred more. “Wha?” is the only sound he can articulate.

“Get up!” Dean urges him.

Castiel huffs a breath and sits up, snatching his boots from Dean’s grip. “Did I sleep late?” he asks, noticing for the first time that the rest of the hammocks are already empty. His boots clunk on the floor as he shoves his feet into them.

“We figured you’d earned it after surviving your first mermaid attack,” Dean says with a smirk. “Come on, let’s go.”

Castiel winces as he moves his wounded shoulder, the scabs cracking and straining against the surrounding skin.

“You all right?” Dean asks, studying Castiel with his forehead knitted in concern.

“It’s just healing is all,” Castiel brushes him off. He stands at last, stretching the kinks from his neck. "Feels worse than it is."

“Well, you’re not bleeding through your shirt, so that’s a good sign,” Dean says, although he’s looking down at Castiel’s shoulder suspiciously. At last he jerks his head in the direction of the stairs to the deck. “Come on.”

Above board, the day has already swung into a blinding midmorning. There’s not a cloud in the sky, and the sun beats down on Castiel’s skin and warms him to his bones. Bobby’s at the helm, and he can see Garth aloft near the crow’s nest, working in the rigging.

Ahead of the _Impala_ ’s bow, a lush green island rises up out of the sea, steep cliffs and dense forest. They’re coming up on an inlet, where the sharp drops of mountains give way to gentler foothills and, nestled as far into the cove as possible, a sprawling town and bustling harbor. Ships of every kind and every size come and go, sailing past the _Impala_ in all directions.

“Is this your first time here?” Dean asks.

Castiel nods, staring up at the cliffs that wall in the cove. Seagulls scream and swoop through the air overhead.

Dean bumps his arm. “You’ll like it,” he says. “Welcome to Tortuga.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Dean and the crew sing is _[Haul Away The Anchor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7BV9JaO1ZI&ab_channel=Karliene)_
> 
> ** Nautical Terminology **
> 
> **Bulward : ** The upper edge of the hull that comes above the deck, forming essentially a rail around the deck and keeps water from washing onto the ship.
> 
>  **Gasket :** A short rope used to tie down a stowed sail to its yard, tied with a quick-release knot to let the sails fly immediately when necessary.
> 
>  **Gunwale :** The upper edge of the hull where it meets the deck, below the bulward.
> 
>  **Port & Starboard:** Left and right, respectively, if one is looking toward the bow.
> 
>  **Stern :** The rear of the ship.
> 
>  **Yard/Yardarm :** A horizontal spar attached to the mast, from which a sail is hung. The yard refers to the entire length of it, while the yardarm is only the outermost portion on either end.


	3. Tortuga

Tortuga is crowded and chaotic. It’s loud. And it’s smelly.

Castiel wrinkles his nose as he follows Dean off the _Impala_ , disembarking onto a wharf already jam-packed with boats of various sizes. Now that they’re on land and alee of the ocean breezes, it’s _hot_ , and Castiel can feel the skin on his forehead and the back of his neck cooking. Sweat is already pouring down to the small of his back, and his shirt is clinging.

Tortuga smells like low tide, rotting fish, manure, and the body odor of a hundred ocean-bound men all rolled into one aroma so thick it could be cut with a knife. Granted, most harbors in both Europe and the Americas smell less than sweet, but Tortuga has a particularly hellish sourness to it. Castiel breathes through his mouth to combat it, but then he can taste it, which is worse.

“What now?” he asks as the captain goes to pay the docking fee to the harbormaster.

Dean wipes sweat from his upper lip, surveying the area. The crew is filing down the gangplank past them, eagerly dashing off to rum-soaked taverns, brothels, and other familiar haunts. Only Bobby and Rufus stay put, waiting for the captain to return. They have errands to run – resupplying and the like – but Castiel doesn’t know if Dean is accompanying them.

Around them the docks are abuzz with activity, swarming with people in organized chaos like the inside of a massive beehive. Working men and women shout to each other in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Creole, as well as a few other languages Castiel doesn’t recognize.

Dean shields his eyes against the sun for a minute, watching his father pay the harbormaster at the head of the dock. “Well, you can head off any time you like,” he says. “But if you want, you can tag along with me. I got a few things to do, and afterward I can help you find a boat to Havana.”

Castiel isn’t sure if it’s the unfamiliar territory making him anxious or the fact that he suddenly doesn’t quite feel ready to say goodbye to Dean, but he agrees with the latter option. He wonders at his decision as he and Dean step from the dock onto solid land, but imagines he’d likely feel the same about any person who had rescued him from monsters.

Dodging fishermen loaded with empty nets, dock workers, and horse-drawn carts, as well as a few wandering goats and chickens, Dean and Castiel meander along the harborside. They pass fish and fruit vendors, taverns overflowing with customers despite the early hour, and yellow-toothed prostitutes that twitch their skirts and flutter their fans as Dean and Castiel walk by. The streets are muddied by cart wheels and scattered piles of horse shit, and Castiel decides this is exactly why he prefers living on the ocean.

They turn down a narrow street leading up the hill, walled with shops and vendors’ stands and even more crowded than the waterfront. Flies cloud around a butcher’s stall, stray dogs licking their chops nearby and eagerly awaiting scraps. A man calls out promises of the best curried goat in the Caribbean, a beggar shakes his cup as he asks passersby for spare coins, and a musician on the steps of a tavern blows a jolly tune on a wooden flute. A hunched woman in a large floppy straw hat shouts “ _Jean-Luc, où es-tu parti?_ ” as she shuffles from stall to stall.

Castiel squints up the street, where it steepens toward the hills and mountains beyond the town, and asks where they’re going.

“Gonna stop in on a friend,” Dean answers without elaborating. “After lunch. You hungry?”

“I suppose,” Castiel replies, though the odor clogging his nose and mouth seems to hold his appetite at bay.

“Good. Here.” Dean holds out a pastry, some kind of meat pie.

Castiel frowns at him in surprise. In his other hand, Dean’s holding a second pie. “Where did you get that?” Castiel glances over his shoulder, down the line of stalls and booths they’ve passed but not stopped at. “ _When_ did you get that?”

Dean grins with a flash of his teeth.

Before Castiel can say another word, a shout reaches them from several stalls back.

“ _HEY!_ ”

Castiel jumps. Dean says, “Oops.”

“ _YOU!_ ” There’s an aproned giant of a man standing outside his stall, a sausage-sized finger jabbing in their direction while his face rapidly turns purple.

Dean slaps the pie into Castiel’s hand. “Run!” He dashes into the crowd before Castiel can protest.

Castiel looks down at the greasy pie in his palm, then back at the angry giant stomping in his direction. He swears loudly and runs after Dean.

Dean is _fast_. Castiel can barely keep track of him far ahead, waistcoat flapping as he weaves through the crowds and turns down one street, then another, and another. Castiel’s boots splash through the mud and he narrowly evades horses, carts, people, and leaps out of the way of a chamberpot emptying from the upper level of an inn.

At last, Castiel sprints after Dean as he runs into a tavern and through, ignoring the startled shouts of the thirsty patrons, and bursts through the rear. Dean finally slows to a stop in the alleyway, panting and chuckling as he leans back against a wall.

Castiel’s chest heaves, and he braces one hand on his knee. His other hand still holds the pie. “You… bastard,” he huffs, sweat dripping from his nose.

“Ah, come on, that was fun,” Dean says breathlessly, lightly slapping Castiel’s shoulder with the back of his hand.

“ _OW!_ ” Castiel yelps, jerking back.

Dean flinches in genuine surprise, then dissolves into wracking belly laughter, clutching his stomach and wiping tears from his eyes. “I’m— I’m sorry, I forgot about the—” He’s laughing too hard to finish the sentence, gesturing vaguely to Castiel’s injured shoulder.

“I’m glad you’re amused,” Castiel says flatly, although he can’t quite stifle a grin as he gingerly rubs the wound through his shirt. Dean’s laughter is infectious, and besides, the pain is already fading. He leans against the wall beside him.

Dean finally stops laughing for long enough to eat his pie, which he does heartily and quickly, wolfing it down like a mutt that’s not seen a proper meal in months. Castiel eats his more slowly, savoring the richly spiced pork filling, and Dean takes a bite of a red apple, again producing food from seemingly nowhere.

Castiel gapes at him. “Did you steal that while we were running?”

“Maybe,” Dean says idly, juice dribbling down his chin. “Want a bite?”

“I’m starting to see where the piracy comes in,” Castiel remarks.

Dean winks at him and doesn’t argue the point.

They stand there for a little while, both to enjoy the last of their stolen lunch and to make sure the baker isn’t still chasing them.

“So who’s this friend we’re going to see?” Castiel asks, wiping the crumbs from his hands onto his breeches.

“ _We’re_ not going to see anyone,” Dean says as he spits an apple seed onto the ground and tosses the core. “She’s an old friend of the family. I swing by every time we stop in Tortuga.”

Castiel pauses, a little miffed that he’s apparently expected to just mill around and wait and do nothing, but holds his tongue, reminding himself that Dean’s the one doing him a favor. If he needs to visit this friend before helping Castiel to find passage to Cuba, then Castiel doesn’t have any room to complain.

“Don’t worry,” Dean says, like he knows what Castiel is thinking. “She’s got a granddaughter who’ll keep you company.”

Dean leaves the alleyway, and Castiel makes a face at his back before returning with him to the busy street. If Dean expects him to play nanny to some stranger’s child, he’s got another thing coming. Frankly, Castiel would rather face down another mermaid.

They navigate the increasingly narrow streets of the town, a tangled spider web of lanes and alleys and straw-roofed houses. The throngs of people begin to dissipate the further they get from the harbor, and as they climb higher up the hill the air clears and it’s easier to breathe.

At long last, when they’re high enough to be able to see the entire harbor, Dean stops in front of a ramshackle house that sags on its timber frame. Far below, the cove gleams in the sun and the surrounding mountains drop sharply into the water, effectively shielding the town from the worst of the ocean wind. From this distance, the harbor doesn’t seem quite so busy, and even the largest of schooners look small at their moorings.

The house in front of them droops like it’s melting in the heat, plaster peeling in a few spots and the door ill-fitted to its jambs. Dean knocks sharply and takes a step back.

After a moment of silence, the door slams open and a cocked pistol is leveled at Dean’s face.

Castiel leaps back, nearly losing his balance, but Dean doesn’t even blink.

“Hiya, Frank,” he says brightly.

Frank, a wild-eyed twitchy man with bristling gray sideburns, keeps the gun aimed directly at Dean’s nose. “The hell do you want?”

“Nothing from you,” Dean replies smoothly. “I’m here to see Missouri.”

Frank’s gun swivels to point at Castiel, which Castiel does not appreciate. “And him?” Frank demands. “What is he?”

“He’s a friend,” Dean says. “You want to let us in now?”

“Not until you’re tested.”

“Frank, I am _literally_ wearing silver and copper right now,” Dean counters. He flicks the mismatched rings hanging from his earlobes.

“Well, he’s not,” Frank snaps, jabbing the gun in Castiel’s direction.

Before Frank has a chance to test him (or shoot him, which seems to be what Frank would rather do), a woman’s voice calls from inside the house. “Frank? Who’s at the door?” A plump, sweet-faced black woman appears then at Frank’s side, barely taller than his elbow, and her face breaks into a beaming smile to rival the sun. “Hello, Dean!”

“Careful,” Frank warns, blocking her with a bulky arm. “They’ve not been tested yet.”

Missouri plants her hands on her sizeable hips and fixes Frank with a scathing look. “Frank, I do not need to test them to know they are who they say they are,” she chides. “Now, quit your whining and be a good host. Come on in, boys.”

Frank grumbles but lowers his weapon at last, his suspicious glare unwavering. A tiny muscle under his right eye spasms as Dean sidles through the door past him.

Inside, Castiel follows Dean into Missouri’s kitchen, where he breathes in fragrant air laden with sage and rosemary and lavender. Bundles of drying herbs hang from the ceiling and a partially plucked chicken sits on the table in the center of the room, feathers dotting the floor. The kitchen is run-down but clean and homey, and Castiel thinks he’d likely feel comfortable here if it weren’t for Frank hovering in the doorway watching him with his gun still dangling at his side.

“Castiel, dear,” Missouri says suddenly, taking Castiel’s hands in hers. Her eyes seem to look straight through him, dark like a tide pool at midnight, and her hands are warm and dry. He doesn’t have a chance to ask how she knows his name before she places her palm on his cheek and says, “I’m so sorry for your loss, my darling.”

Castiel swallows, feeling stripped of his skin, but can’t quite look away.

“To have survived what you did,” Missouri continues, her voice soothing as she shakes her head in sympathy. “You have a strong spirit.”

Her hands withdraw, leaving him dizzy.

“You got any snacks?” asks Dean, poking at the plucked chicken.

Missouri purses her lips at him and crosses her arms over her chest. “What, stealing food in the market wasn’t enough for you, boy? Get your filthy hands off that bird!”

Dean does as he’s told, looking a bit like a scolded puppy.

“You better be glad I don’t tell your father,” she says, although the threat is lacking in bite. “Castiel, you’re welcome to sit here for a little while. Don’t let Frank scare you too much; he won’t do nothing.”

With a pointed look at Frank, Missouri ushers Dean through a doorway into the back of the house, leaving Castiel standing awkwardly in the kitchen under Frank’s scrutiny.

Castiel stands there for a minute, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot with questions piling up in his head. But Frank’s still on edge, and he hasn’t holstered his pistol, and Castiel doesn’t want to risk being shot through the head.

“Sit,” Frank says eventually, pointing to the table. “Rather not have you wandering about. Plenty in this house for you to get your hands on.”

Castiel has absolutely no idea what Frank means by that, but arguing with a twitchy, trigger-happy stranger doesn’t seem like a great idea. He sits.

Frank drops himself into a chair opposite, placing his pistol on the table with its nose pointing at Castiel. Still, his hand is no longer on the gun, so Castiel supposes it’s an improvement.

“So.” Frank leans back, bracing his meaty hands on his hips. “You’re the _Impala_ ’s newest addition, are you?”

Castiel clears his throat. “Uh, no,” he says. “I’ve just been with them a few days. They saved me when my ship went down.”

“Oh, yeah?” Frank’s tone is unsympathetically light, as though he thinks Castiel isn’t telling the truth. “What sank your ship?”

“An aspido— aspidochelone,” Castiel replies, still stumbling over the word but managing for the first time to say it in its entirety.

Frank’s entire demeanor changes in a second. His eyes widen, he leans forward, elbows on the table. “An aspidochelone?” he echoes. “You survived an aspidochelone?”

Castiel nods.

“That’s impossible.”

Castiel isn’t sure what Frank expects him to say to that, so he shrugs and says nothing. He’s not all that inclined to justify himself to a man who’s threatened him mere minutes before.

Frank scoots his chair closer. “What was it like?”

“...Beg pardon?”

“On the _island_ ,” Frank says, his voice dropping. “What was it like?”

Castiel’s stomach twists, going cold deep in his gut. Inias’ final scream echoes in the back of his head.

Fortunately, he’s interrupted before he can think of a polite way to say _No, fuck off, and please don’t shoot me._

The front door of the house clunks solidly on its hinges and a girl shoulders inside, carrying a large basket braced on her hip that overflows with fresh vegetables, carrot tops feathering over the rim. She’s dark-skinned and tall, slender, with a kerchief tied over her hair to keep it off her neck in the heat. Castiel can only assume this is the granddaughter Dean had mentioned, and suddenly feels grateful that she’s not a small child like he’d been expecting. Instead, she’s no younger than sixteen.

When she enters, she greets Castiel with only a “Hello” and heaves the basket onto the end of the table. She doesn’t look surprised in the slightest to find a stranger sitting at the table, and instead drops a bunch of carrots in front of Frank. “Go on, peel those, make yourself useful,” she tells him.

Frank huffs, clearly wanting to ask Castiel more questions instead, but stands to retrieve a knife from the counter behind him.

“I’m Castiel,” Castiel says, almost wishing she’d give him something to peel so that he’d have a task to occupy his hands.

“I know,” she replies, a smile tugging at her mouth. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Patience.”

Castiel blinks, confusion finally outweighing his sense of propriety as he blurts out, “All right, how does everybody here know me?”

Patience glances at Frank as he sits back down and goes to work on the carrots. They share a light chuckle, amused by Castiel’s lack of comprehension. “Dean didn’t tell you?” she asks, unpacking plantains, cassava, sugar apples, and sweet potatoes from the basket.

“He just said Missouri was a friend.”

“Son, you’re in the home of psychics,” Frank says, like it’s something Castiel should already know. “Our sanctum sanctorum.”

Castiel stares at him for a moment, then snorts.

Patience only raises an eyebrow at him.

The bemused smile slides from Castiel’s face. “Wait. Truly? Psychics?”

She nods as she places fresh ginger root on the table.

“So you can read my thoughts?” Castiel asks.

“Well, no,” Patience explains, dropping the empty basket into the corner and grabbing a second knife from the counter. She sits at the head of the table and begins shucking the skins from the sweet potatoes. “My grandmother can read thoughts. She senses things from certain objects, reads energies, tunes in to people’s souls. I can’t; I see the future instead.”

Castiel peers at her in bewilderment, still not quite certain whether she’s playing a joke. “So…?”

“So I knew you and Dean would be here before I came in.”

“You can tell me my future?” Castiel presses, a million questions heaping up in the back of his throat. Will he make it to Cuba? Will he see England again? Will he ever see another monster?

Patience pauses, fixing him with a level gaze. “I find that most people don’t really want to know their futures,” she says. “And I can’t say that I blame them. In any case, if I do tell them what the future holds, the mere fact that they know what’s coming is enough to knock them from that path and into a different future. Best to keep one’s visions to oneself.”

Strangely, Castiel thinks he detects a note of heartache in her voice. He suddenly feels rude for asking.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Patience continues, “seeing only the future means I don’t know anything else about you.”

It does make Castiel feel slightly better, only because he feels a little less exposed, but then Frank ruins it.

“He survived an aspidochelone,” Frank says, gleeful, like he’s sharing a tantalizing bit of gossip.

Patience’s eyes blow wide, and she drops her knife. “How?” she asks, then quickly closes her mouth and shakes her head. “I’m sorry. You don’t want to talk about it. You don’t have to.” She stomps Frank’s foot under the table, and he yelps.

Castiel decides that he likes Patience much more than Frank. He changes the subject. “How do you know Dean?”

“My grandmother’s known the family for a long time,” Patience explains. “Since before I was born. She took care of the boys a lot when they were young.”

“The boys?”

“Dean and Sam.”

“Who’s Sam?”

She stops short, then clears her throat. “Dean’s brother,” she answers, her voice abruptly tight. “He’s not with the crew anymore. I thought Dean would have mentioned him.”

Castiel shakes his head, sensing that he’s brushing up against a topic he shouldn’t approach.

Patience straightens her shoulders, focusing intently on the sweet potatoes she’s skinning. “Anyways. Now, we help the _Impala_ with their hunts on occasion, and a few other crews who do the same thing.”

“All three of you?” Castiel asks with a dubious look in Frank’s direction, because jumpy and suspicious don’t seem like traits that should coincide with psychic ability.

Patience giggles airily.

“Every psychic ain’t the same breed,” Frank says with a sneer. His hands are stained orange, carrot peelings piling up on the table in front of him. “We all have our specialties. Mine comes with a certain level of paranoia, which in this line of work is just good common sense.”

In what seems to be a growing trend in this conversation, Castiel has no idea what Frank means.

The muscle under Frank’s eye spasms again. “Monsters,” he clarifies. “I sense monsters.”

Castiel chews on this thoughtfully for a few minutes, and the table falls quiet apart from the knives peeling and chopping. He strains his ears and tries to hear what Dean and Missouri might be talking about in the other room, then quickly stops when he realizes that Missouri would likely be able to tell he was eavesdropping. 

“Wait,” he says, once again confused. “If you can sense monsters, then why would you worry about testing me?”

Frank’s eyes bore into him as surely as the knife he’s holding, his shoulders tensing even further. “You can never get too comfortable in what you _think_ you know about the world,” he snaps. “Let your guard down, and that’s when something new will come around and bite your head off.”

Castiel swallows, his insides churning. This was a point he could agree on with Frank. A week ago he might have dismissed the idea as nonsense, but it had only been when the _Infinite Rose_ anchored in a safe harbor that she’d been destroyed.

Somewhere in his twisting stomach, Castiel feels a tugging, pulling him back to the sea. But not to Havana. No, he wants to go north, back along the route he’d taken with the _Impala_. He can still hear the snap of the _Rose_ ’s mast and the splintering of her hull, his friends and crewmembers dying. He wants to kill the thing that killed them.

“Then, you can sense the aspidochelone? You can tell the _Impala_ ’s crew where it is?”

Frank makes a sort of growl in his throat, like he hates both the question and the person asking it. “You want me to track vampires, sirens, mermaids… That I can do. An aspidochelone is different.”

“Why?”

“Because aspidochelones are old creatures, older than magic, as old as time itself. They date to the age of the Titans, before Man ever took his first steps on this earth. They’re practically gods.” Frank munches on a carrot peeling, looking a bit like a lizard with its tongue out as the carrot skin dangles from his mouth.

“Well, then how has the _Impala_ been following it?” Castiel demands, exasperation hooking in his throat, his words coming out sharper than he intends. “Dean said they’d been hunting it for months."

“It’s been pure luck,” comes the gruff answer from behind him.

Castiel twists in his seat, the chair creaking beneath him, to see that Dean and Missouri have returned from the back room. Instantly, Castiel can see that something has changed; something hard and hurt is etched into the corners of Dean’s face. He suddenly looks older.

“We keep our ears open,” Dean says. “Anytime we hear other sailors talking about a new island, we go. Usually we’re too late and the thing is already gone.”

Castiel isn’t given the space to ask anything further; Dean turns and leans down to give Missouri a farewell hug.

“It’s been good to see you, dear,” Missouri tells him, patting his shoulder. When he stands back, she squeezes his arm in a comforting gesture, and he smiles tightly in return.

“Frank, always a pleasure,” Dean says with a nod to Frank, who grunts at him.

Patience stands suddenly, frowning toward the kitchen window before Dean can say goodbye to her as well. “Someone’s coming.”

Only a moment later, there’s a shout from outside. “ _Madame Moseley! Madame Moseley!_ ” a woman screams, quickly followed by a frantic pounding on the front door. “ _S'il vous plaît, aidez moi! Aidez moi!_ ”

Missouri shoulders past Dean and Patience, and Frank lurches to his feet, seizing his gun from the table. Castiel stands too, suddenly wishing he still had the copper cutlass, but he’d left it on the _Impala_ that morning.

Missouri flings the door open and ushers a sobbing, trembling woman inside. The woman is young and small, a slip of a thing, in clothes that are threadbare and patched several times over. Her dark skin is tear-stained on her face and chapped on her hands, her mouth open in a seemingly unending wail. “ _Mon Dieu, aidez moi!_ ”

“Slow down, child,” Missouri says kindly, cupping the woman’s face in her hands. She’s quiet for a moment, gazing into the woman’s eyes, and everyone in the kitchen waits silently with their hearts in their throats. When Missouri speaks again, she breathes out a soft “Oh, dear” and covers her mouth with her palm.

“What’s wrong?” Dean presses.

Missouri takes a long breath, patting the woman’s arm and giving her a short nod. She turns to Dean. “Her son Jean-Luc has gone missing. She’s been looking for him all day but there’s no sign of him. He vanished from the market.”

The woman is still crying, sagging against the wall like the very air’s gone out of her. Missouri gestures for her to wait a moment.

“Patience, honey, would you get my kit for me?” she asks. Patience nods and swiftly disappears into the same back room where Dean had gone, returning only a few seconds later with a beaded pouch that she hands to her grandmother.

“We can help,” Dean says.

Castiel frowns at him in surprise, having not expected to volunteer for a search party today. But seeing the look on Dean’s face – a new kind of focus, his jaw tight in determination – makes Castiel forget any protests that might have occurred to him. “Yes,” he agrees. “We’ll help.”

Frank’s eyes narrow at the woman, and he sniffs the air. His knuckles go white around his gun. He bares his teeth.

“Frank?” prompts Missouri.

“She’s got the smell of a monster about her.”

Castiel tenses immediately, taking a step back. “She’s a monster?”

“Not _her_ ,” Frank says. “But she’s been near one. Her kid was taken.”

* * *

Jean-Luc’s mother’s name is Marie Helene. She’s young – barely twenty-six – but already a widow. She has four children, of whom Jean-Luc is the second eldest and the only boy. Marie Helene works as a laundress, and they live on the outskirts of town in a house that’s so run down it’s missing sections of thatch from its roof.

The walk from the psychics’ home to Marie Helene’s is not long, but for the duration of it Dean is quiet. Castiel supposes that he doesn’t know Dean well enough yet to say whether this is odd behavior, but something in his gut is pulling, urging him to ask Dean what’s wrong. Dean walks behind Missouri and Marie Helene with his mind obviously elsewhere, not quite seeing the dirt under his feet. But before Castiel can work up the courage to broach the subject, they’ve arrived.

If the psychics’ house had been ramshackle, this one is practically a ruin. Holes in the roof, and the entire frame leans to the left like one strong breeze could blow the whole thing down. There’s a small weedy garden outside, plants having been recently ripped from the soil and tossed. The few plants still standing are far from flourishing, barely holding themselves up.

“Why are we visiting her home if the boy was taken from the market?” asks Castiel, not entirely sure he wants to set foot in Marie Helene’s house for fear the roof collapses on them.

“Kid won’t still be at the market,” Dean says, peering curiously at what’s left of the garden. “Odd time of year for a harvest, isn’t it?”

Missouri _tsks_ and shakes her head. “Marie Helene says someone keeps doing that. Without the garden they don’t have enough to feed all five of them.”

Frank approaches the garden cautiously, crouching to take a fistful of dirt. He sifts it through his fingers, rubs a bit between his forefinger and thumb and sniffs it. Instantly, he makes a disgusted noise in his throat and jerks to his feet, spitting on the ground.

“Monster’s been here?” Dean prompts him.

Frank nods. “Can’t tell what it is exactly, though. I ain’t ever sensed that before. Smells like rotten poultry.”

Castiel’s stomach churns. He’d thought the aspidochelone and the mermaids were terrifying enough; somehow, a creature that passes through crowded towns and steals children in broad daylight is so much worse.

Inside Marie Helene’s house, there’s a girl no older than nine sweeping the kitchen floor, a toddler playing in the dust and a baby strapped to the older girl’s back. “ _Maman!_ ” the girl cries when Marie Helene comes in, and wraps her arms around her mother’s waist.

Missouri braces a hand against the door jamb, closing her eyes and bowing her head. She breathes slowly and deeply. “The creature hasn’t been in the house,” she says, her eyes still closed. “But it’s been outside many times, feeding from the garden. Spying on the children.” She shudders.

“Can you see it?” asks Frank.

Missouri winces, and shakes her head. “No. It’s in shadow.”

Dean swears loudly and abruptly, dread clouding his face. “I think I know what we’re dealing with here.”

“Well, don’t keep us all in suspense,” Frank snaps.

Dean swallows, rubbing his hand over his mouth. “I’ve seen this once before, in Trinidad. It’s a douen.”

“A douen?” echoes Castiel.

“Yeah, douens feed on kids,” Dean explains. “Sometimes a dozen at a time. They stalk them, raid the nearby gardens, and lure the kids to their den."

“Where’s the den?”

“In the woods. Gotta be. Douens are forest dwellers; they only come into towns and villages to hunt.” Dean runs his fingers through his hair, sweat beading on his temples. “I guarantee there’s more kids missing than just Jean-Luc. He’s seven years old, right?”

Missouri glances at Marie Helene, then nods.

“That’s the right age. Old enough to walk off on their own, young enough to not know any better.” Dean looks sick at the thought.

Castiel doesn’t hesitate to ask, “How do we find him?”

Dean gives Castiel a measured look, then shakes his head. “Cas, I know you have to go,” he says. “I’m sorry, I know I said I’d help you find a ship. You don’t need to be a part of this. If you could just find someone from the crew and tell them what’s happening, send them back here—”

No. This is too important. Havana can wait. Castiel cuts Dean off swiftly and decisively. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m helping.”

Dean swallows, and Castiel thinks it’s relief that flits over his face.

“Is three men enough to take care of this creature?” asks Missouri.

Dean glances for a moment between Castiel and Frank, and nods. “Yeah, douens, they’re solitary. There’ll be only one.”

“Then I’ll stay here with Marie Helene and the children.” She takes Marie Helene’s hand in hers, patting comfortingly and giving the terrified mother a sweet smile. Despite Marie Helene’s lack of English, she seems to understand that they’ll help her, and her shoulders fall as though she’s just dropped a huge weight to the floor.

“ _Merci,_ ” she cries, still trembling. “ _Merci._ ”

Before charging blindly into the woods, Dean, Castiel, and Frank circle back again to the psychics’ house to arm themselves, once Dean has confirmed that a douen can only be killed by a silver knife. Frank packs a small goatskin bag with food and a few other necessities and slings it over his shoulders. Castiel takes the silver knife Patience hands him and straps it to his belt.

Dean peers closely at his borrowed blade to ensure that it’s sharp. “Any visions, Patience?” he asks, his tone falsely light. “They’d certainly come in handy right about now.”

“I see fire and bones.”

Dean, Castiel, and Frank all stare at her.

“Well, that’s comforting,” Frank remarks.

She shrugs noncommittally. “Nobody ever said telling the future was straightforward,” she says, bracing her hands on her hips. “Could mean anything.”

“Great,” mutters Dean. “Well, if we’re not back by sundown, you’ll, y’know…?

Patience nods. “I’ll send the cavalry.”

Despite the cacophony of the harbor and its surrounding town, the crowds and the filth and the buildings crammed up against one another, the vast majority of Tortuga is heavily blanketed by forest. Immediately beyond the edge of town are small crop fields bearing fruits and vegetables, and they quickly give way to trees and brush. The woods are dense enough that even during midday it’s still tenebrous and murky, the canopy filtering the unrelenting sunlight into little droplets that scatter and vanish in the undergrowth. Plenty of places for any number of creatures to hide with their prey.

Frank is their saving grace, acting as both map and compass. Like some kind of bloodhound, he picks up the rotten-chicken smell of the douen lingering on half-eaten fruit in an orchard close to Marie Helene’s home, and they follow him into the trees.

As the town vanishes completely behind them, Castiel keeps his eyes trained on Dean’s back. It would have a certain poetic irony, he thinks, if he survived an enormous sea monster and a vicious pack of mermaids and then died from simply getting lost in the woods only a few days later.

There are no paths cutting through the trees, and it’s slow going. Frank also picked up a large machete from his house and now he leads the way, slicing and chopping through vines and shrubs and branches, turning this way and that as he follows the creature’s course.

“Keep your wits about you,” Dean says over his shoulder as the terrain steepens. “These things are fast.”

“What exactly are we supposed to be looking for?” Frank asks as he hacks through a particularly tangled web of vines.

“You’ll know the den when you see it.”

“Thank you, that’s very helpful,” Frank spits into the undergrowth.

“Dean, the last time you encountered one of these douens,” Castiel starts, panting as he hikes up the slope after them. “How did it turn out?”

Dean is quiet for a moment, and Castiel thinks he hears him clear his throat. “Not so good,” he answers. “We killed the thing, but we… we were too late. By the time we got to the den, there was nothing but bones.”

“Then shouldn’t we have gone for help? Maybe your father?”

Castiel isn’t sure what he was expecting Dean to say to that, but he sure as hell wasn’t expecting him to flinch like he’d been burned, shoulders tightening.

“We’re close,” Frank says, his nose wrinkling like he’s just eaten a moldy piece of fruit. “Stinks like a trash pit.”

Instantly, Dean’s posture changes. Still tense, still rigid, but now on guard with his eyes scanning the trees. Castiel draws the knife from his belt as they climb over a ridge and the ground evens out, the vegetation growing just sparsely enough here to almost be a clearing. He can’t smell anything, but that’s what Frank is here for, he supposes.

Somewhere above the forest canopy, the sun is beginning to set. The light is already green and fading, like they’ve sunk underwater.

“Which way now?” Dean prompts Frank, who’s scowling at the trees as he rotates in place like a mill wheel, sniffing every few seconds and trying to pin down the odor’s source.

Frank doesn’t get a chance to answer, because the monster drops out of the tree above him.


End file.
